Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
by Takhira
Summary: An attempt at peace turns into a declaration of war. All Atlantis has to its advantage are its principles. Have they changed enough to win this war, or has the Stargate Program alienated its allies?


Chapter 1

No one had come down to the brig since Atlantis had landed on earth. Three weeks had gone by, slowly and monotonously. The only way of telling time was by the changing shifts of the guards. The lights never darkened; the temperature never changed. The brig was its own, pathetic, and forgotten little world of nothing. It was just a bland cage with nothing in it save for a single bland occupant—though patient and abiding—was by now also considered nothing.

Todd wondered if, whatever convoluted bureaucracy the humans constantly struggled with, had no plan for him and, just as he was, were waiting for one to present itself. Humans did often lack the ability to think of things too far ahead-especially when he was involved.

He did his best not to let on that he was looking for a plan to present itself; John had made it quite clear what he'd do if he even thought Todd was looking for one, let alone thinking one up. He'd heard the threat from someone else long ago and it had worked… until he began to speak to John. It was because of John that Todd was no longer behind bars and it was because of John that Todd was behind bars now. This time, the threat was not going to work. This time, Todd would do whatever it took to defy his captivity and taste true freedom, no matter how it ended for either of them. He wouldn't do it for himself this time; he'd do it because he owed the man.

He had done nothing but survive, live from day to day, for so many years he had failed to see the point of keeping track of them until John had done everything short of beating him to get the message across that dying free was better than rotting away in someone else's basement. He went to such lengths to show him hope, only to know that once Todd had tasted it, he could forever dangle it just out of reach while laughing. John had apparently grown bored with that game—or just decided he no longer liked Todd's less-than-concerned attitude—and just abandoned him altogether with the statement that if Todd showed hope for such freedom again, he'd take Todd's life away first.

Freedom was no longer Todd's goal. It was not out of pettiness or cowardly resignation, or even spite, but out of a sense of duty and debt. He'd given John's life back years ago; this time he would repay in tutelage. Before, John showed him what he believed humanity truly was. Todd wanted an opportunity to do the same.

By now, Todd wondered if he should still keep track of how long he was imprisoned. The genii, at least, had some use for him. It was merely a formality-no matter how skilled Todd had become at escaping in recent years—to leave the force field on while closing and locking the brig doors.

John arrived, shooing the soldiers away.

His usual peeved attitude toward the wraith was accompanied by a sense of melancholy that he was either trying to hide or fight. He wasn't dressed for duty, merely a tee-shirt and jeans, and his hair was in even more disarray than usual.

Todd stood to greet him, but that was it. They were at a standstill, locked in what is known as _mamihlapinatapai_—two people wanting the same thing, but each unwilling to take initiative. To Todd, this was John's city, and John had made it clear that he was not welcome. To John, this he was ruining Todd's 'next time'; he was a jackass.

John shoved his hands in his pockets.

Todd blinked.

John sighed.

Todd tilted his head in confusion. He didn't move any closer, but he was now truly curious as to what John was trying to force himself to say.

"Stargate Command's decided to move you to Area 51," John said, looking at his shoes. There, he'd said it. He wondered why he felt worse now. He didn't know why he felt bad at all in the first place. For a wraith who was polite enough to stay out of his head, Todd had a knack for messing with it in other ways.

Todd's expression of curiosity hardened into something unidentifiable. "I see," he said.

"So you've heard of it?" John asked. As far as he could tell, Todd's knowledge of things was random at best and based around what he could steal at worst.

"It is where you put things you want to forget and the world to never know of," Todd said. "Will you at least tell me: When you spoke of how little worth there was in a life spent in a cage for eternity, were those words meant to be hollow, or merely for yourself?"

"What do you expect me to do?" John complained, taking his hands out of his pockets and waving his arms.

This wasn't how he wanted things to go. Todd was supposed to be upset, or at least ignorant of the whole thing. He was supposed to be the good guy, offer manly comfort, and then send Todd on his way. Why did Todd keep ruining his ability to help by telling him to piss off or asking questions that made him look bad?

"I do not expect you to do anything," Todd said. "My fate is no concern of yours."

"Look, this isn't my fault!" John said.

"No, it is not," Todd said. "It is mine for believing in your deception for years."

John wanted to explain, but, he didn't. He wanted Todd to understand, but he also thought Todd wouldn't believe him. He wanted to know things were better this way and that Todd should hold out hope, but he didn't believe that. He didn't like what Todd was saying, but he didn't know why he should care. He felt his ambiguity would disappear if he told himself Todd was just upset and trying to get out of it. "So… this is 'goodbye.'"

"Enjoy your freedom, Sheppard."

…..

John woke up to someone trying to contact him over his radio. Yawning , he reached over and grabbed it off the nightstand.

"Huh?" he asked, holding it to his ear.

"Please see me in my office," Woolsey said over the device.

"Do you know what time it is?" John asked, grabbing his clock. If he was going to argue, he wanted to be right. It said 4:59 am. There had better be a good reason for this.

"Early enough I'm not in a mood to repeat orders," Woolsey replied. "SGC's sending a helicopter to pick you up. I'll explain during the trip."

"Is this as serious as it sounds?" John asked.

"Several marines are dead and Todd's missing."

…..

The helicopter ride was unpleasant enough to be considered aggravating, but hardly uncomfortable enough to detract from how suspicious circumstances had been in the last few hours. Too many details piled up and happened too precisely and too much was unknown as a result.

No one from Atlantis noticed, but the trip was worse for the pilot. He thought landing through the cloak would be the end of his problems, but he had barely been briefed on Atlantis. He had no idea what had happened or what a wraith was, but the more they contemplated and explained the situation, the worse he felt, even in the air.

Woolsey explained the situation to John, Teyla, and Ronon as they passed thermoses of coffee between back and forth. "Stargate Command wanted to avoid places that were heavily populated and to avoid heavy traffic in case something happened."

"Didn't work, did it?" John retorted.

"The trip was supposed to change drivers twice with no other stopovers. They never made it to the rendezvous point with the second driver." Woolsey continued over the noise of the helicopter. "No one from the car managed to radio a distress call. A news helicopter alerted the Onizuka Air Force Base when they saw the car on its side between two pile-ups on highway 106. The county's not happy the Air Force took over the investigation, but they said they'd let us take over if we get the highway clear in a few hours and leave immediately. This state's not big on military intervention and we're already trying to tell the media they're panicking over nothing."

"At least he'll be easy to spot" John said, sipping from the thermos. "And it's not like he can drive even if he figures out how to steal a car."

"He also has no incentive to make this pleasant or easy for us," Woolsey said. "He could cause a lot of trouble or, given that he knows nothing of earth, could get into some."

Despite Woolsey's intentions, his remarks caused Teyla to snort coffee back into the thermos she had taken from John. "We have to worry about someone taking advantage of a wraith?" she asked, laughing.

"He couldn't have blocked the radio by himself," Ronon said. To him, it was all just a matter of finding out who to shoot.

"Who'd want to help Todd escape?" Teyla asked.

"Someone who knew Todd was in the truck, probably," John said pointedly.

"What would be the point?" Woolsey asked, feeling he was missing half the conversation.

"Blackmail, ransom, expose the Stargate Programs for dumb reasons… been there, done that," John said, shrugging. For early in the AM, things weren't as confusing at he thought they'd be. Disastrous, yes, but he could easily understand it now that he'd had some coffee. At this rate, they'd find Todd just before lunch…their lunch.

"How do we figure out which of those they intend to do?" Woolsey asked, hoping someone else would be serious about this.

"How do we know Todd's cooperating?" Ronan asked. It'd be easier to solve both problems by just shooting Todd. If the wraith was wandering around, he was likely to give Stargate Command reason to let him shoot Todd. Problem solved. Things were easier when everyone was either a bad guy or good guy. Grey areas got your ship set to crash into a planet and lots of people whining about blame.

"How do we know Todd's alive?" Teyla asked. She didn't express much care about Todd's life. Ally or not, he was still a wraith. Her job was to see if she could sense him. If he was dead, she was a dead weight and likely considered a burden by the armed forces. If there were better ways to help, she wanted to volunteer for those and, not stand around being useless.

John winced at the comment, though he didn't know why. He'd seen nasty wounds; lost limbs; even deaths one would have to clean up with a mop; whatever his uneasiness was, it wasn't from remembering those incidents. Now things were getting confusing.

He wondered who had the coffee.

"It's been over an hour since the crash and there's a lot he can get into. If he we don't hear about having to scrape an alien off something when we get on the ground, he's fine."

"I think we should be a bit more worried about cleaning up after him," Woolsey said. A wraith was loose, someone one was intelligent enough to wreck an armored car, and the best people to solve the problem thought this was little more than a nuisance.

"Usually when something like this happens, we just have to wait until whoever started the whole mess comes crying for us to clean it up," John said. "Given Todd, they might just hand him back without a fight if he's cranky enough."

Woolsey sighed. As long as these three proved as competent as they were confident, it didn't matter. If they were going to change their minds, it wouldn't happen up here.

…..

The helicopter landed as close as possible to the scene of the accident.

The armored car was on its side, spaciously sandwiched between two piles of cars. The street was littered with bullet shells, blood, and bodies. The day was still dark, moths gathered innocently around the lamps that only lit of small areas with bright, coarse, light. With the cars lying themselves like cold corpses and the striking chiaroscuro of the scene, and the large amount of bodies that were present, the scene should have been dramatically eerie in its resolute quiet.

Instead, it just gave off a feeling of dullness. Inanimate objects lay where they were, their innate indifference obvious and unimpressive. The stillness of the air was neither stifling, nor hinting at some great vastness of the cosmos. Despite the scrutiny everyone gave it, the scene seemingly wished to be passed over, its greatest impression on those who were here being that of denying its own importance and trying to hint at what they were looking for was somewhere else.

There was only one doctor and her three assistants attending to the scene. Neither noticed the newcomers due to the darkness; to them, the helicopter was just full of more superiors bent on yelling at each other and had nothing to do with them. The doctor made no movement towards them, even after an assistant pointed them out to her; she finished the job at hand before even turning towards them.

"You're the people from Atlantis, I take it?" she asked politely. "The wraith experts?"

"Yep," Ronon answered. He always prefered to be as concise as possible.

"I'm Dr. Goldstein, forensics examiner for SGC," she said, gesturing for them to follow her as she turned away. "We have to clear out the scene when you're done, so take your time. Maybe you'll find something we can use." The doctor did noting to hide the fact that she was eager, almost professionally giddy to learn what they could glean from what she told them.

Almost as if it had been practiced, Dr. Goldsten took a flashlight from a waiting assistant, who immediately set about to another task, and climbed into the over-turned armored car. "Don't disturb anything, please."

The inside was already starting to smell mildly of tainted meat and flies were gathering. Everywhere her flashlight shone was something gruesome and disturbing, almost as if the ennui outside had cleverly hidden this from view just to laugh at their surprise and repulsion.

Woolsey stood back to give the others room; he was just here to babysit and explain—at worse give legalese in case something happened. Besides, they had to carefully step around two bodies to get to the car. He was not about to risk messing up a crime scene or getting in the way just to be useless.

"We've more or less pieced together what happened to the wraith for the first few minutes," Dr Goldstein said. "What was its name again?"

"Todd," John said. It was looking less and less like they could blame Todd for anything. Too bad; it was so much easier when they could.

There were two more bodies in the truck. The soldiers outside had been killed far more cleanly than these. The soldier in the rear of the truck had been shot in the back the head. The one in the front had been shot in the chest and his hand had been shot through. As gruesome as a death by a wraith was, at least you never needed a hose afterward.

"Most of what we've found about him is from splatter," Dr. Goldstein said, waving the flashlight to show the blood on more than just the floor. John doubted forensic scientists made many friends. "Snipers—we believe two or three—took out the driver and tires, which is why the car tipped over. They kept shooting until it was on its side." She pointed a small hole in the 'floor'. "I sent samples of the blood to the labs to confirm all this, but the placement correlates with where Todd was sitting and the height would indicate the bullet hit somewhere in the upper back, probably the shoulder. There's no exit wound splatter. It's also the only wound we can't match up to any of the other bodies."

She moved her flashlight to shine on the damaged hand of the soldier in the front. There seemed to be less of the hand in the intense light. Bone gleamed like pieces of expensive porcelain that had carelessly been dropped and gristle glistened like strings made of fake diamonds. Bits of dark metal and wires had tried to hide away in pieces of flesh, as if trying not to disturb the morbid beauty of the incandescent light shining down on the sickening masterpiece.

"His radio was shot first when the doors opened; the blood splatter, though, would indicate Todd was crouching behind him." The light from her flashlight shot from the destroyed hand to vague dots of dried blood on the floor and walls.

"Odd," Teyla remarked. "It was following orders."

"It doesn't usually follow orders?" Dr. Goldstein asked.

"Not when it doesn't have to," Teyla said, scoffing at several memories.

"He still had his cuffs on, didn't he?" Ronon asked, as a rebuttal.

"We haven't found any evidence those were taken off, no," Dr. Goldstein said, not entirely following the conversation.

"But he did leave," Teyla stated angrily, her emotions directed at wraith instead of the alien she was arguing with.

"Why'd he wait?" John asked. Great, more mysteries involving Todd. Just what he needed before the sun came up.

"Threats, most likely," Dr. Goldstein said, interrupting the group. "There's splatter on the back wall and on the clothes of the corpse in the back and a droplet pattern on the floor. These match up with its shoulder wound and being struck on the side and jaw with something heavy if it were standing." She moved the flashlight again, this time to shine on the back of the closest soldier. No one could see anything of interest, not even an interesting new pattern of blood. "There's a vague set of footprints here from someone we can't account for."

The uneasy feeling John had had when talking to Todd was back again and he didn't know why. Thankfully, Ronon spoke up before him.

"Seems straightforward," Ronon said, crossing his arms. He wanted to get to the action. Especially the action that involved shooting something. It was a simple way of thinking, but when one has spent almost a decade where killing is a priority, things tend to simplify themselves.

"Well, you know it better than I do," Dr. Goldstien said, ignoring the accusation of possibly wasting their time. "The thing did leave some interesting footprints of its own, though." She shone the flashlight on the pool of blood from the far soldier. It was only a messy, partial print with small droplets from a splash littered around it. "He stepped back when he was hit. The footprints lead to the edge of the car, then to the street," she said, her flashlight highlighting the prints and resting to shine on the last one.

"Most of the blood was on the heel, but this one indicates pressure was put on the ball of the foot after he stepped down. This is where the prints end, too."

"You have no idea why, I take it," John said, covering up the fact that he didn't either. The only good news was that he wasn't going to have to help cover up picking alien bits off something.

"He took off his shoe," Teyla noted.

"Huh?" John asked. "He was still cuffed, though."

"He used his other foot," Teyla said. "He—" She looked down at her army-issued boots. No possible demonstration there. She looked at the doctor. High heels. Still wouldn't work. "Mr. Woolsey!" she called out. She preferred to call others by their first names, but that was his strange, overly professional preference and she never argued about it.

"Did you find anything?" he asked, approaching them and doing his best to keep his poise while maneuvering around the bodies.

"Can you take your shoe off without using your hands?" Teyla asked. Loafers. Perfect.

"I don't understand," he said.

"Can you show them how?" she said, nodding vaguely at the group. "You don't have to take it off completely."

"If you insist," Woolsey said, doubting he wanted to know why this nonsense was necessary. He shifted one foot so that his heel was off the ground and with the other foot, pushed on the back of the shoe with his toes. Once the back of the shoe was loose he slipped his foot out of the shoe halfway, showing that such a task was easy for even him.

"Thank you," Teyla said before turning back to the group.

"So, if that's what happened…why?" John asked.

"Thoroughness," Ronon answered immediately. "No tracks." Ever. No matter what. "They didn't want to take chances with anyone knowing which way they took him."

"How is it that no one heard all this?" Teyla asked.

"I don't understand," Dr. Goldstein said.

"Gunshots aren't uncommon on earth," Woolsey told her, making sure his sure was firmly back on his foot. "Not around here." He didn't go into the fact that cars made similar noises.

"Why not?" Tyela asked, confused. "That means they're shooting at someone, which is serious."

"Or they're trying to," Ronon corrected.

"That's not always the case on this planet," Woolsey said calmly. One of these days someone was going to have to explain many, many, many seemingly unimportant or contradictory details of earth to the two aliens they'd recruited from the Pegasus Galaxy. That someone was inevitably going to be him for the most part, and he'd known it for years. He still didn't want to. "In this country, it's legal for nearly any citizen to own a gun."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Teyla asked.

"Welcome to earth," John said.


End file.
